adventure

Journey or Destination: discovering our style

| Chris Riley

We’ve done a lot of camping and caravanning trips over the years. From as little as three nights under the stars in a swag, to two and half years in a fifth wheeler doing the round trip of Oz twice.

Our current trip has seen us on the road for almost three calendar months, with another week or two before we leave for home. We’ve only just started to analyse why we thoroughly enjoy some trips and can’t wait for more, and why sometimes home is calling to us, and we leave a place sooner than we thought we would.

It’s rarely about the weather. Enjoying the weather is always our primary object when travelling. If it’s winter and we want a short trip away, we wait for clear skies and will go away a few days away to nice camp area in the forest. With a campfire lit, and a camp oven to cook in we really enjoy a few days of camping in cool, clear weather under the stars. Sometimes a hot chocolate with a dash of whiskey before going to bed really hits the spot.

We love those little forest get always. Now that we’re retired though, they’re better fitted in during the late spring, or early autumn. To spend the full winter in the cold of Mandurah is something we no longer have to endure. Broome, with its consistently warm, but not hot, temperatures is our ideal. However, whilst we’ve enjoyed Broome to some extent on this trip we’re now ready for home. We’re booked to stay in our caravan park for almost another two weeks yet though, booked and paid. We’ll probably leave a little early (there won’t be any refund). We’ve done that too many times, and keep promising ourselves we won’t do it any more. Now that we’re in the process of analysing just why it is that we keep doing this, we’re realising that it’s because for us, it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey – a lightbulb moment!

For this trip we enjoyed our first couple of weeks travelling up the coast. Wooramel River Retreat was fantastic for three nights. We’d hoped to stay at both Gladstone and 14 mile at Warroora Station. Both places will be better enjoyed under clear skies, but the weather Gods didn’t favour us staying there on this trip. We bypassed both places, and headed into Onslow. It’s a place we’ve never stopped before, and we didn’t expect to like it. We booked for a week, and enjoyed it, so we booked a second week. That was a mistake. Three days into the second week and we were ready to move on. We didn’t, but it was a long four days. Then it was one night stops in free roadside places until we arrived into Broome Caravan Park. We stayed there for thirteen nights. Broome Caravan Park wasn’t what it used to be. It was dirty. We enjoyed Broome, but the caravan park was awful.

Next main stop was Katherine on the way to Darwin, with one night stops as we went along. We stayed in Katherine for three nights, then on to our son’s house in Darwin for three weeks. Whilst it was lovely to see our son and daughter-in-laws newly built home, and to catch up with them, three weeks in one place, especially suburbia, was a bit too long.

The return trip to home began. Somewhere along the road our planned trip to return home via the Red Centre had changed. With a dog on board we were going to be too restricted travelling down the middle. Darwin had re-enforced that we’d made the right decision. Darwin isn’t as dog friendly as is WA. That made it more difficult for us to fill our time there, and apparently the Red Centre is even less dog friendly than Darwin is. It’ll have to wait until Tilz has lived out his years.

We’ve currently been back in Broome for nearly three weeks now. We love Tarangau caravan park where we’re staying, but we don’t like the site we’re on. It’s against a road that gets a lot of traffic, and it’s quite a small site. We tried to transfer to one of their premium sites which are bigger, more grassed, and away from this busy road. None have become available. We’re booked and paid here up until the 28th August. I don’t think we’ll last that long.We have friends arriving into Broome in few days time. I suspect we’ll wait it out so as to catch up with them, and then we’ll be on our way.

It’s been quite enlightening to do an analysis of which we enjoy most, the journey or the destination. I think it’s the journey, with favourite places enjoyed as short stays along the way. It’s hard to travel freely now without booking some destinations long in advance. Broome is difficult, it’s usually booked out long in advance of the season. However, we enjoyed the space we had at Gateway Caravan Park, which is only 28 kilometres out of Broome. We also enjoyed the price, and the camp fires in the evening. That’s a place that doesn’t have to be booked, they have a big overflow area even if it does become fill. It’s a place we can arrive at whenever our journey gets us there. It’s on our minds for next year, but NOT WRITTEN INTO OUR CALENDAR. https://lifeofrileyow.com/2026/07/28/broomes-gateway-caravan-park/

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I think that’s going to be how we’ll travel from now on. Set off from home when we’re ready, and stop where and when the journey takes us. I think we’ve finally said goodbye to pre-booking a destination months in advance. A lot less scheduled, a lot more spontaneity, that’s what our trips are needing.

Broome though – we’ll always enjoy Broome, perhaps for three nights, perhaps for three weeks. It’ll depend on our mood, and what the sites available to us are like. We won’t be booking and paying for anything from now on anywhere long in advance, and never for longer than a week. We’ll extend for short periods subject to how we’re feeling, and according to availability. I’d rather miss out on a few more days becoming available, than forfeit money by having paid up for longer and finding we’re wanting to move on sooner. From now on Broome will be part of our journey, not our destination!

But first: Coffee

| Chris Riley

We don’t use a fancy coffee machine, nor do we use instant coffee. Paul is the Barista. He makes our first coffee of day at around 6.30am, and he makes it the old fashioned way, brewed in a percolator with freshly ground beans. He even weighs the ground coffee, exactly 27gms goes into the percolator for two cups. Our first cup is always black. Later in the morning we have our second cup, and that’s always with frothed, full cream milk. When we’re out and buy a coffee, I’m usually disappointed. Paul makes lovely coffee.

We tried instant when we were off grid. That just didn’t do it! Initially we were tentative about using our power station for running anything with a heating element. I don’t know why. We’d been mainly using it to keep our second fridge/freezer, a 52 litre portable Bushman fridge/freezer running. I’ll tell you a bit more about the Bushman later. Today’s post is all about the all important: Coffee! When travelling between places we usually park up for the night with sufficient sunlight left to put a lot of charge into the power station. Paul tried plugging the van directly into the power station. However, the caravan 3 way fridge found the electrical source, switched off gas, and onto the electrical, subsequently depleting all the power from the station. Then he tried not plugging the van into the power station, and instead used the milk frother and coffee grinder directly onto the station. Eureka! It hardly touched the power available, and now we have our morning coffees, brewed fresh and hot, just the way we like it, even when we’re in the middle of nowhere. All we need is a couple of hours of sun to charge our station. We use a 2000 watt power station, with 300 watts of portable solar panels.

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We hadn’t thought of unplugging the caravan 3 way fridge from its electrical source, forcing it to keep running on it’s gas source when off grid. When we leave for our return trip to home in a week or two we’ll try that. We think that having the van plugged directly into the station, without the 3 way fridge sucking up all the available power that everything we use inside the van including our all important, coffee making, stuff, will work as per normal. It won’t matter if it doesn’t work, but a bit more convenience if it does. We’ll see.

But now, my all important second cup of freshly brewed coffee, with it’s frothy milk sitting on top, is all hot and is calling to me. Ahhh, yes – But first coffee!!!!

What a pleasure!

How big does a caravan need to be for a couple travelling with a dog?

| Chris Riley

You may be wondering just how big a Caravan set up is that would be suitable for a couple with a dog. If you’re considering setting up for caravan travel I guess the answer to that will depend on what the basics are that are necessary for you. Every rig is a compromise of some sort, and every couple has their own set of needs and wants to make living in a caravan enjoyable for them. A bigger rig gives more on board storage space, but it also needs more space to store your van when not in use. You’ll need a substantial vehicle to tow it with, and your fuel economy will be higher than if you can manage with a smaller rig.

A smaller rig is lighter to tow so you won’t need a heavy duty tow vehicle. There won’t be as many cupboards and drawers inside it either so you will have to be economical with what you pack to take away with you. When it’s not in use a smaller van is less cumbersome to store. If you don’t mind the canvas skirt around the top of a pop top caravan, one of these may even fit into your garage, or under your carport.

Think about whether you want an ensuite in your van. We’ve had two caravans with ensuites, and two caravans without. I used to think it was important. But now I’m happier without that extra size and weight behind us when travelling along. We do carry a porta-loo on board, and we manage between caravan parks by having a PTA shower (Privates, tips and armpits). Some people carry a portable shower with them that they set up in a separate shower tent.

Shall I tell you about our rig? Okay, get yourself a cup of coffee and settle yourself into a comfy chair, and I’ll tell you what we manage with now…..

We have a very modest, 15 year old, Coromal Magnum 457, pop top. It’s only 15 feet in length, has two single beds, and it doesn’t have an ensuite. The caravan has been well kept, and didn’t look to have had taking any sort of beating. We only paid $18,000 for it. At the time of purchase we thought our Subaru Forrester would be okay as a tow vehicle, it was legally able to manage the weight of the Magnum. However the 200km trip to bring it home told us how wrong in that assumption we were. The mileage was horrendous. The next week out went the Subaru and in come the vehicle we now tow with, a 2020 Pajero Sports.

Our caravan has air conditioning, but at the moment that’s not working. (The joys of buying an older van, things in it may getting towards the end of their use by date). However, our idea of caravanning isn’t so much to go to different places, but rather to be in perfect weather. (Hence Broome is repeatedly on our winter travel agenda). We’ve been a bit further this year. We went up to Darwin which is hotter, and more humid than Broome. Air conditioning would have been useful up there. However we have two fans, one for at the end of each bed, and the fans together with the great ventilation that a pop top has, meant the van cooled down quickly. When the outside temperature dropped the van cooled down quickly. It wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t unmanageable. Personally I think we’re all getting a little too reliant on things such as air conditioning and heating anyway. I wonder sometimes if we’re losing the ability for our bodies to self-regulate temperature. Never-the-less we will get the air con looked it to see if it can be fixed. If it’s past it’s use by date we’ll think hard before replacing it. I doubt it’s going to get much use, but as it’s housed inside a cabinet, the space it takes up could be better utilised for storage. There are some pretty damn good portable air conditioning units now too. They don’t take up much space, and could travel in the car to be brought out only when needed. Something for us to think about. If any of you reading this already have a caravan and if it has air conditioning, do you use it very much? I’d be interested to know, it may help us make our decision.

The fridge is a 90 litre built in 3 way fridge. It runs very well on gas, but can be temperamental on 240 or 12 volt. A lot of people seem to be replacing their 3 way caravan fridges now with two way compressor fridges. We’re considering doing the same. So, again if any of you reading this have a caravan we’d be interested to hear what type of fridge you have. If you have a compressor fridge do you regret not being able to run it on gas? We have a good battery pack and solar panels. We’ll need to look into it further yet, but we think the battery pack will be sufficient to run both our caravan with a compressor fridge, and our portable Bushman fridge. We’ve been looking at the Bushman 130 litre compressor fridge. Apparently this fridge should fit into the same space as our Dometic 90 litre fridge. That’s a lot more internal fridge space for the same amount of caravan space that the current fridge takes up. Do any of you have a Bushman Fridge? Are you happy with it?

We’re both in our 70s now and as we’ve grown older we find a good nights sleep has become harder to achieve. In a caravan the single beds help, plus they’re easier to make, the bedding is easier to launder, and single beds give a feeling of more space inside the van.

We have a wardrobe between our twin beds that has a cupboard underneath. That’s where we store our porta loo during the day. At night we pull it out and place up the other end of the van, and then we put the dogs bed on the floor between us in front of the wardrobe. At home he sleeps on our bed, but single beds just aren’t big enough. It took a few nights of perseverance to get him to accept the new sleeping arrangements, but he has no problems with it now. The wardrobe has shelves in it rather than hanging space. We use packing cubes, and between the shelves, the overhead cabinets, and the under bed storage we have tons of space for all of our clothes and other stuff.

We’ve also purchased a number of attractive cane baskets which sit on the shelf that goes all around the van above the cabinets. The baskets house our tea towels, bath and beach towels, games, dog grooming gear, and several other bits and pieces. When we’re travelling most of the baskets sit on the beds, with some in a crate on the floor between the beds. When we pull up for a night it takes less than 10 minutes to pop the roof up, unzip the top windows, and put the baskets on the top shelf.

Apart from the lower initial cost of our second hand pop top, and the fact that it fits into our available storage space at home, the thing we really love is how airy it is. It’s a caravan, but the canvas around the top (or the PVC or whatever it’s made of) gives it a bit of a feel of camping. We love that. In our fifth wheeler and full height New Age caravan it took much longer for the van to cool down and for the breeze to blow through taking all the stale air from travelling with it.

That’s basically it for our indoor set up. It’s a small set up, but it’s adequate. There’s plenty of room for two old codgers, all of their gear and their little Labradoodle. We’re comfortable. We do as much of our living outdoors as we can, so our outdoor set up is extensive. For now though this post is already almost long enough to be a book. I’d better tell you about our outdoor set up another day.

Oh – and for any of you interested in how my editing problems are coming along with WordPress. Their AI assistant escalated the issue to their ‘happiness engineers’. Eventually they acknowledged this is a known problem, and they sent me a link to a Jetpack editor. It seems to be working a treat. I do hope they fix the problem though soon. It’s been a problem for years….. Honestly – just how long does it take! I guess companies just never fix errors these days, they’re far too busy trying to move on to bigger and better things.

The costs involved in caravanning

| Chris Riley

In a recent post I mentioned some costs for caravan parks. One of the comments received on that post expressed surprise at the price, thinking that caravanning was a cheap holiday option. Consequently, I did a bit of research.

Firstly you’re going to need a caravan, a tow vehicle, and a few other bits and pieces to make life comfortable. For a small entry level van you’ll likely pay somewhere between $25, 000 & $50,000. A mid range caravan with a few more luxury’s such as air conditioning, standard solar panels, and a small ensuite will be a more expensive. You would expect to be paying somewhere between $50, 000 & $90,000 for one of those. However if you really want to add a bit more size, luxury, or be equipped with a heavy duty van for more self sufficiency, and hard off roading, you’ll need to fork out somewhere between $100,000 & $250,000.

Below (in no particular order) are some of the rigs we’ve had. This is only a few of them. We’ve upsized, and downsized many times over the years. We’ve had tents, camper trailers, caravans, and even a swag. We’ve had small second hand caravans, one new caravan (a New Age Manta Ray), and we’ve had a top of the wozzar second hand fifth wheeler. The fifth wheeler was brilliant, easy to tow, and very luxurious to be in. The swag was cool, absolutely perfect for a few nights camping under the stars, particularly on a dry winter’s day when you could have a fire. And I have to say I loved our first caravan, and I love the one we have now. Both are pop tops, so that canvas top makes them feel airy (almost like tenting, but much more comfortable and convenient), and both were no frills.

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You’ll also need to factor in a vehicle that’s up to job of towing whichever van you choose. Your existing vehicle may safely tow one of the smaller vans, but if you choose one of the extreme heavy duty models, or a big luxury caravan you’re going to need to consider something like the big American Rams to handle the weight, or at the very least a Landcruiser. Whatever you do, don’t tow anything above your vehicles towing recommendation. Should you come to grief, you most likely wouldn’t be covered by your insurance.

On top of the initial outlay for your van and vehicle, you’ll also need to set it all up. Towing mirrors, weight distribution systems and vehicle brake controllers will cost somewhere between$4000 & $9000. Your running costs will add a further $3000 – $8000 a year. That’s to cover registration, servicing and repairs, and the extra fuel needed to tow your caravan.

Then you’ll maybe also want outdoor chairs and tables, something to cook on outdoors, ground sheets, and possible even a gazebo.

Caravan park fees for a powered site can be anywhere from $25 – $125 a night. (Yes you read that correctly – if you want to stay in a much sort after area in peak holiday season, overlooking water, $125 a night would be the going rate). The $25 nightly fees are for out of the way places, usually inland, and not usually places that are on people’s holiday itinerary. Of course if you are set to be completely self sufficient, and you have a rig that’s capable of taking down some rugged roads, you may be lucky enough to find a lovely spot that costs you absolutely nothing, and you may be lucky enough to have it all to yourself. There are also lots of places that are organised camp grounds with either no, or very little facilities that have small nightly fees. (Some of these are now getting expensive to now. Expect to pay anywhere between $10 – $60 each night, depending on how popular the place has become).

We’re currently staying at a modest caravan park in Broome. I’ll show you around the park at a later stage. It’s a lovely park, not too big, and nice and shady. It doesn’t have a pool, nor a kids playground (advantage being, not many kids here belting around on their bikes, or throwing a tantrum because mum or dad wants them do something they don’t want to do). We’e here for full calander month, on a small powered site at a cost of $2418. We love the park, and of all the parks we’ve stayed in in Broome, this is the one we’ll be coming back to for sure. Again, I’ll tell you why in a later post.

If you were under the assumption that caravanning is a cheap holiday, I wonder if I’ve just disillusioned you. If you use your caravan often though, it does cover the costs of the initial outlay. If you then compare the costs of three months away per year in your caravan as opposed to three months away in paid accommodation, you would end up in front most likely in the caravan. I think most regular caravanners though would agree with me though when I say that caravanning isn’t about the costs (although that probably does enter into it). It’s a lifestyle choice. For us, it’s about sleeping in our own bed, not one that’s been slept in by 1000 other people. It’s about being outdoor under our annex, cooking our own food, having our own vehicle with us, and being able to holiday with our dog.

It’a about being in Broome for much of the winter, and being able to drive right up to the water’s edge on an outgoing tide in our own vehicle. It’s about having our drinks in that vehicle and maybe even dinner, having a long walk on the beach , and then sitting with a drink as we watch the sun set. It’s about being able to get to our happy place.

Mr Tilly hasn’t always taken to caravanning. But now he loves it. It’s such a pleasure to be in our happy place once again, and now with a pesky puppy who also seems to be enjoying it as much as we do.

Apologies for all the errors in this – I’ve tried everyone’s suggestions, and I’ve been onto the AI assistant that WordPress has. None of it works, and in fact it’s gone from bad to worse. Everytime I try to insert my cursor into text now for a revision the whole block highlights. If I carry on, it deletes the whole block. I’ve managed to save a couple of blocks but only just, by closing down before it has a chance to auto save. Some of the errors change the context of what I’m trying to say altogether. I have the choice of re-typing the whole thing or publishing as is. SO BLOODY FRUSTRATING. As this is a ‘known fault’ the AI assistant on WordPress has escalated the issue for human assistance. I have no idea how long the take to address the issue. Bearing in mind that I’ve contacted them myself long, long ago, and no doubt others have contacted them also many times, I’m not holding my breath for any help in the near future. I’m not going to re-type my whole blog, and I’m resenting the fact that I may have to learn how to deal with typing this all up in Pages first (as others seem to do to get around these editing issues). I want to stand up for what I think is my right – that is to be able to edit what I write in my WordPress draft. I pay for that right. I’m going to be WordPress’s squeaky wheel. I’m going to be pestering them daily, maybe even hourly…. They’re going to hate me!

Onslow, don’t by-pass this place

| Chris Riley

Next stop on from Yannarie Roadside is Onslow. We had stops at Gladstone, and at Woorrara station planned, weather permitting. However, rain was on our tail, so weather wasn’t permitting, so we let those two places wait for another year. Onslow wasn’t originally on this year’s travel route, but with time to spare it seemed like an opportune point in time to take a look. Having heard not so great things about Onslow in the past, and as the road to get into Onslow is approximately 80kms off the main highway it’s a place we’ve always by-passed. As part of our new dedication to a slower rate of travel and with spare time saved by excluding Woorrara and Gladstone, we decided we’d give it a whirl this year. We phoned ahead, and as they had an ocean view site available. We decided to stay for a week.

With beautiful views over the ocean from our site, and views of both sunrises, and sun sets, it took us only two days to decide a second week was a good idea. That’s the sun rising in the photo above. Here I am 11 days later, sitting overlooking the beautiful Indian Ocean from our campsite, typing up this post.

With a population of less than 1000, there isn’t much in the way of facilities in Onslow. There’s a general store, a hardware store, and there’s a beach club with a restaurant/cafe. Of course at this time of year the town swells with tourists utilising the two caravan parks (one of which has just undergone a big new extension). The general store has most of what we all need. It’s pricey, very pricey, but it’s good quality, so can’t complain.

In front of our caravan park is a wooden boardwalk which I think is more than a kilometre in length. It starts at Back Beach (so named because it’s the best place to view the sunsetting at the back end of the day), and it finishes just past ANZAC park. From there it’s a short walk along the front of the town to Front Beach. Front Beach is the best place to see the sunrise I believe, but we’ve been happy watching it rise from our caravan. Neither beach is great for swimming, although we did manage a quick dip at Back Beach the other day. (Quick being the operative word – there’s some big fish in the water’s around Onslow!)

It looks like the towns folk are trying hard to tidy up the town. It’s very tidy, and it’s peaceful, and it feels very safe.
Feeling safe is one of the things that’s been missing in recent years when visiting any town in WA north of Dongara. A few years ago there seemed to be an unwritten rule that caravanner’s gear was a ‘no go’ zone for would be thieves. Not now though. Now we’re told to sleep with our car keys under our pillows. As I said though, Onslow feels realtively safe. ANZAC park photographed above is an example of how tidy the town is. There’s barbecues, picnic tables, and there are no obvious signs of vandalism or litter.

As I said we’ve had one swim, but I doubt we’ll go in again. The town may feel relatively safe, but I’m not so sure about the ocean. If I could say there’s one thing missing from the town, it’s a good swimming beach. Perhaps one day there will be, maybe an ocean fed infinity pool built out over the close to shore reef. But that’ll definitely be years away, if at all. Apart from that we’ve done some beach combing, we’ve taken a look at Old Onslow (Onslow was relocated about 100 years ago), and we’ve tried our luck at fishing, successfully I might add on two out of three occassions. It’s been a relaxing stay, and could well be on our travel map again future years.

Not much remains of Old Onslow except the old cemetery, and the ruins of the police precinct. The rings attached to the floors in the remains of the cells was a reminder of the cruelty with which we treated our criminals in days gone by, and in particularly, indigenous law offenders. They were certainly given a rough deal in days gone by, and that’s a shameful part of Australia’s history. Our indigenous population is still not given a completely fair deal, but it’s a complex issue. Living in this country, it’s a difficult problem to address, a problem that divides our country, and a problem that people from overseas may form an unfair judgement of when looking at isolated ‘facts’. The percentage of the jail population in the north of our country is primarily indigenous peoples. That taken at face value can appear to be a country that’s racist in its judicial system. However, this statistics need to be taken in the context of who is committing the most crimes! It’s not evidence of racism, rather it’s evidence of a system that doesn’t seem to be working at aligning the behaviour of the indigenous community with the expectations that society now has upon all of it’s citizens. As someone said to me recently in regards to our indigenous population, “never have we given them so much, yet never have they behaved so badly”. I don’t know what the answer is. I do know we haven’t found it yet, and I doubt we will for a generation or two yet. Those rings cemented into the derelict cell floors almost brought a tear to my eyes. So did some of the gravestones in the cemetery. 50 seemed to be past the general life expectancy. Most of the women’s headstones showed ages somewhere between 27 and 36. The headstone that I’ve included in the gallery above gave food for thought though, ‘ Some day, Some time, we’ll understand’. I wonder what happened to poor Walter, what was his story!

And that folks is Onslow. I’m sure there’s more to the town, more history, and much more to come in a few years of tomorrows. But for now, it’s been a pleasure for us to take advantage of Onslow as it is today. I’m sure we’ll be back this way again.

Yannarie to Onslow: 198kms

Fuel @ $2.70 litre. Total $150 (including filling jerry can)

2 weeks accommodation @ $315 per week. Total $630 (however torrential rain is expected on the two days prior to our scheduled departure, so we’ll pull up stumps two days early and head to Broome. Broome can ALWAYS be relied upon for consistently fine weather throughout the dry season.

Laundry – 3 loads @ $4 a load, total $12

Birthday celebrations at Wooramel River Retreat

| Chris Riley

176 kms on from Nerren Nerren is the Wooramel River Retreat. We’ve passed it many times before, this was the first time we’ve stopped in to take a look. It won’t be the last. There’s no potable water, and no power, but they have flush toilets, artesian water warm showers, and artesian water fed hot pools to soak in. They have a cafe, a bar, and a restaurant. I think there’s a few accommodation options, as well as grassed caravan/camping sites close to the restaurant area, or the more popular, large and roomy riverside sites a bit further away, each with it’s own fire pit. We chose one of the Riverside sites.

Give me a home amongst the Gum Trees any day. In this case, beautiful, white trunked River Gums, on the banks of the dry Wooramel river bed. This river is similar to several in the Gascoyne area, they flow upside down apparantly, only rarely having water flow on the top surface. This one hasn’t had any water above ground since August 2024, and if there was water in it at the moment, the whole area would no doubt have been flooded and we wouldn’t have been able to get into the retreat. We set up camp, had some lunch and visited the artesian pools for a bit of soak.

The pools don’t look wonderful, but they are gorgeous and warm , and in an outback place like Wooramel, they are a certainly worth taking advantage of.

It was my 71st birthday so treated ourselves to a bottle of bubbles on the restaurant lawn, a delicious lamb burger with roasted Mediterranean vegetables and a yogurt sauce. The marshmallows toasted over their communal fire.

Cheers

The next morning we rose early (as we always do), and sat outside under the gumtrees as we watched the day break. The sunrise was stunning.

There’s a 5 km riverside walk. No water in the River, but the walk was peaceful, with some amazing River Gums, so gnarled they look more like a sculpture than a tree.

So that was our two nights at Wooramel. What a pleasure! We loved it.

Distance between Nerren Nerren and Wooramel River Retreat 176kms

Re-fuel costs: 35 litres @$2.18 Total $76

Accommodation for 2 nights, $84

PS Please excuse any spelling or/and grammatical errors in this. WordPress is such a pain to use these days. It can take me 30 minutes to try and correct the errors made in 10 minutes of typing. I get so frustrated with the site sometimes……. After 30 minutes of frustration I give up and just publish it anyway. (Honest, I’m not completely illiterate, just technically challenged, especially so with WordPress these days.) I wonder if there’s anywhere I can actually leave a review of WordPress…..

Nerren, Nerren

| Chris Riley

We arrived early afternoon yesterday, opened the van and discovered the fridge had opened during our travels. The steaks were on the floor getting warm, the beetroot in a Tupperware container was on the floor but thankfully hadn’t come open, although it had leaked a little. And a full, unopened container of yogurt had hit the floor and cracked leaving a few blobs of yogurt here and there as it had rolled around, but thankfully it hadn’t burst completely. I think the fridge must have swung open, dispersed these three items, then swung shut and closed firmly again. It wasn’t a big clean-up, and will serve as a reminder that a back up closure is always wise on a fridge door when travelling. Paul fitted brackets at the side of the fridge in bigTravel Home a few years ago and we used ocky straps across the fridge as our second line of defence against the door swinging open during travel. He’s going to add Velcro tabs to this fridge.

With the mess cleaned up and the van popped up and set up for the night, it was time for a late lunch. With the steaks having been out of the fridge for a while, it seemed like a good idea to cook them. Steak and salad it was. There were a few flies around but that’s not unusual at this time of year. We didn’t fancy them having a share of our lunch though, so we ate inside the van.

Nerren Nerren is a large roadside campsite that would accommodate probably a hundred or more rigs. We’ve stayed here many times. We’ve never felt cramped in, the drop toilets are usually pleasantly clean, and apart from the distant noise of a road train passing on the highway occasionally, it’s usually quiet enough throughout the night. Last night there weren’t too many people staying here, so again we didn’t feel cramped in. However that’s all the good I can say about last night. The toilets had broken locks and were very smelly. We used them, but only once, feeling almost in need of a shower afterward. And there was a truck parked up near the highway who had some sort of very loud generator running all night. We’ll have to re-think this place on any future trips. But it was only for one night. Today we move on for Wooramal River Retreat.

Distance travelled between Dongara and Nerren Nerren: 256kms

The cost to re-fuel on the way $65 @ $2.17 per litre

Accommodation: free

Next Stop – Dongara/Port Denison

| Chris Riley

Our next two nights are at the Big 4 Dongara/Denison caravan Park. It’s on the coast, and I think every caravan site has a view out to the ocean, albeit only through the single row of cabins that have the premium ocean front views.

We set up some things on arrival, and had a late lunch. Then finished setting up, and had a drive into the small town of Dongara to get a gas bottle filled. The town may be small but the houses along the shoreline are not. The stature of the houses on the blocks of land with ocean views reflect that main enterprise of the town – Cray fishing. There’s a lot of money to be made from Crays. I think most of the Crays (or lobsters) caught are exported. I don’t mind that there aren’t a cheap supply for visitors, I’m not a great fan of crayfish.

After our short drive we took Tilz for a walk, and found a fish and chip shop. I rarely take a night off from cooking, mainly because I’m one of those control freaks that likes to know what’s in my food. That doesn’t mean I don’t eat my fair share of sugary treats and things like hamburgers or pizza, it just means we tend to make most of them ourselves so as we know what we’re eating. Last night though as the sun was heading down over the Indian Ocean, we thought it might be nice to sit and watch it set as we ate a parcel of fish and chips straight out of the paper. So that’s what we did.

The fish and chips were a bit ordinary, but ok. The view was very tranquil.

Tomorrow we leave for a free overnight camp. It’s been a bit windy here in Port Denison, but it’s pleasant enough.

Caravan park fees for 2 nights $99.50

Laundry – 1 load $5.00

After 4 nights of PTA (Privates, tips, and armpits wash down), the fresh water shower – priceless!

Kms from last camp site at Milligan Island 97km (no fuel needed yet)

Full Circle

| Chris Riley

I think I started this blog around 13 years ago. Its purpose was to record our travels. The title of the website: lifeofrileyow.com standing for Life of Riley on wheels. When circumstances weren’t what we expected (by way of pesky puppy who didn’t comply with our idea that any dog of ours would love a life on the road’,)the road trips stopped. I then changed the OW to stand for ‘on whatever’, so as I could keep on recording our journey through life without the title of my website becoming meaningless.

WOW what a ride the past 13 years have been, more twists and turns than the average road trip, more forks in the road of life than the average person sees for sure, and more about turns and changes in direction than is good for anyone’s health, I think you’d agree.

But here we are 13 years or so on. We’ve moved from Busselton into a lovely little (but not too little) lock and leave duplex in Mandurah. Mandurah used to be primarily a holiday or retirement destination. It still is to some degree, but it’s also now well and truly linked to the metro area in Perth, so it’s become quite suburban. It was never a place we holidayed in often, I don’t know why. Anyway a few changes of circumstances caused us to move from Busselton, and somehow or other we landed in the Mandurah area. We ask ourselves daily, “How come we never holidayed here?”. If we had, perhaps we would have bought here instead of Busselton in the first place. However, ‘no regrets’, we met a lot of lovely people in Busselton, some of whom we will remain friends with for the rest of our lives I hope.

When life on the road stopped, we resigned ourselves to short overseas holidays leaving the ‘pesky puppy’ in the care of family or friends. The holidays were ok, but they weren’t the road trips we loved. Eventually we decided to give road trips another go, only we’d created a bit of problem. We’d downsized – we were living in a unit with very limited parking, and our diesel powered Prado had been changed for a Hybrid Yaris….. But ‘no problems, only solutions’ as the saying goes.

First a swag (loved it, but needed more space to carry it and the necessary camping gear to enable using it). The swag became a tiny camper trailer, then the tiny camper trailer became an A-liner camper trailer. The Yaris went, and was replaced with a Subaru Forester. The Forester and the A-liner were a really tight fit in our little unit. There definitely wasn’t room for any van even slightly bigger, nor a bigger car more suited to towing. So we started looking for somewhere more suitable to be living.

Long story short – we landed in Mandurah. We had intended to keep the A-liner, and the Forester for a year or two, but never-the-less we still browsed. And of course, if you browse long enough, you will get tempted….. The latest rig is a 2020 diesel powered Pajero Sports, and a 2012 Coromal Magnum pop top. I think this house, this car, and this van are all going to be our last, and yes I’ve said that before. But this time you can quote me on that. It’s time for us to settle down and stop moving around, even though that’s not strictly true. Moving around for part of the year is exactly what we intend to do, only from our lock’n’leave home, and in our Pajero Sports, and with our Coromal Magnum pop top hitched up behind us.

And that Pesky puppy who stopped us travelling on our road trips a few years ago – well he’s nine this year. When we purchased the small camper trailer, with a huge amount of trepidation, we went to the vet and got the equivalent of Prozac for him. The first trip in the camper trailer was so peaceful. He was one chilled out little dog, just laying and watching the world go by. The next trip we forgot to give him a pill, and guess what, he still lay down and watched the world go by. He’s grown out of his Pesky puppiness. One or two prozacs was all it took.

We’re currently at a campsite called Cosy Corner, right beside a beautiful beach near Albany WA for a week. Paul, not so pesky puppy, and me are all having a wonderful time, swimming, walking & relaxing.

The van is certainly no luxurious fifth wheeler like we had thirteen years ago, nor is it the New Age with toilet and shower on board. It’s just a humble little unpretentious pop top with single beds, and an on board porta loo tucked into a cupboard. It’s clean, comfortable, and much nicer to have trailing along behind you than a great big box that’s bigger than the tow vehicle. I was never overly comfortable with that.

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We’re only away for a week this time. But come May we’ll be heading off for 3 1/2 months, following the sun up to see our son and daughter-in-law in Darwin. I think I can sincerely end this little post with one of my favourite sayings for when life is just dandy (and we all know life isn’t always just dandy), but at the moment, I can definitely say, ‘what a pleasure’!